ON THE

BRITISH POETS.

BY

HENRY REE D.

LATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & co.

1860.

CONTENTS.

LECTURES ON ENGLISH POETRY.

LECTURE X.

BURNS, (WITH NOTICES OF JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE POETS.)

Monotony of Pope's verse—The revival of a truer spirit of

Poetry - Chatterton - Merit of Cowper - Dr. Johnson's lite-

rary dictatorship - His “Lives of the Poets” — Sir Egerton

Brydges's criticism on them — Cowper's judgment of them

- Johnson's incapacity for poetical criticism — Johnson's

judgments on Gray—“London"_“Vanity of Human Wishes”

- Percy's “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” – The

character of this poetry — Robert Burns — His boyhood -

Early trials—Mossgeil Farm-The freshness of his poetry-

Its universality-Wordsworth's lines —“The Mountain-Daisy"

_" The Field-Mouse" — “Cotter's Saturday Night” — “Tam

O’Shanter" - Mary Campbell — Morality of Burns's poetry

- The Bard's Epitaph — Wordsworth’s Lines to the Sons

of Burns.....,

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9

LECTURE XI.

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

The present age not an unpoetical one-Five names worthy

of distinction-Samuel Rogers—The “ Pleasures of Memory"